ATF Chief Counsel Robert Leider Resigns

ATF Chief Counsel Robert Leider's hiring was something that caught a lot of pro-gun folks a little off-guard. We expected the ATF to become a little more friendly, but Leider has long been a strong Second Amendment voice in the legal community. Was he selling his soul, or was he set out to help reform the organization into something we'd all rather see?

Well, nearly halfway through the second Trump administration, and we've seen what the ATF is like today. Many of the proposed rules have been good for gun owners, and even those that seem a tad suspect are still better than we might have had under someone like Steve Dettelbach. 

In other words, we have our answer, and Leider didn't sell his soul.

Unfortunately, he also isn't the ATF chief counsel anymore.

ATF Director Robert Cekada said Leider tendered his resignation, and he has accepted it. Mr. Leider will return to the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University as an Assistant Professor of Law. No other reasons were given for the resignation.

“Today, I accepted the resignation of ATF Chief Counsel Robert Leider,” Cekada wrote on X. “Robert has been a trusted advisor and has ably led ATF’s legal and policy work, strengthening the agency’s operations in countless ways. We are grateful for his service and wish him the very best as he returns to George Mason University, which is fortunate to have him back. Best of luck, Robert.”

The departure comes just weeks after Leider and Cekada sat side by side explaining the agency’s new National Firearms Act (NFA) guidance to gun owners.

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Before taking the position, Leider was a Second Amendment scholar who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Sykes. At Scalia Law, he taught criminal law and torts. His scholarship focused on criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law, with a particular focus on self-defense, the constitutional allocation of military power, and gun control. He published in the Florida Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, and The Wall Street Journal, and he wrote “The Individual Right to Bear Arms for Common Defense.”

There's no doubt that Leider has been a key component of the new-and-improved ATF. He's also a big reason that anti-gunners are disgusted with the organization, which just makes me like him all the more.

He was an advocate of reforming the ATF rather than dismantling it, and he clearly had a point. Had the ATF been abolished as many, including myself, wanted, those duties would have simply shifted over to either the FBI or, as was proposed at one point, the DEA. Considering the DEA's track record on civil liberties, that would have been less than ideal.

And at the end of the day, the rules would still be the rules without a reform effort on top of everything else.

Well, we've gotten reform, and the ATF is a very different animal from what we've seen in the past. They're going after the illicit gun trade, not law-abiding gun store owners; something they should have been doing all along. 

Now that he's gone, I'm concerned about where the organization will go, but there are other options out there for the role, and hopefully, the next to fill the office will be just as strong on gun rights as Leider has been.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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